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Note: My first source for Clark information was from a family history book, written my my great-grand-aunt Lida Maude Clark, b. 6 March, 1866, d.o. Robert Patterson Clark and Violett Sophia Clark. This information, largely undocumented, indicated that Samuel came with his parents in 1725 from Londonderry, Ulster County, Ireland, and that he, the third son of Robert and Letitia Clark, was a Presbyterian parson. Aunt Lida wrote, "At the time of the American Revolution, he, with fourteen other parsons, refused to fight. He at least held to the courage of his convictions and stayed at home 'to succor his flock who would be in sorrow, discomfort, and anxiety, during the absence of their brave men out on the field'.
I did find his name listed as one of 14 "parsons" who refused to fight, in _Miscellanneous Revolutionary Documents of New Hampshire, including the Association Test, the Pension Rolls, and Other Important Papers_ , Vol. 30; however, I have never found his name among any list of ministers in Rockingham Co. NH. My third cousin Judi Cross Crowley speculates - 8 March, 1998 - that maybe the word was "person", not "parson". After a visit to Dallas Public Library, April 15, 1998, and rereading entries in above referenced book, I agree with her. Of course, we don't even know if that Samuel Clark was our Samuel Clark!
There is even the possibility that he did indeed fight in the Revolution - at the Dallas Public Library, Jun, 1998, I found the following in the "Forty-First Report of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1, 1937 to April 1, 1938", p. 132:
Samuel Clark, b. 1738, d. Aug 19, 1790, buried Forest Hill Cemetery, East Derry, Service in Ninth Company, Col. George Reid's regiment, 1777-79
So far - 8 Jan, 1999 - I've found no other support for this.
Samuel is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, formerly the First Parish Church Cemetery, Londonderry (East Derry) NH, between wives Sarah Holmes and Janet Barnett. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
"Since he is gone we have no more to say, But here he must remain until
judgement day". Judi Crowley says, "Those inscriptions were usually well thought out (they
sound quaint to us, but they were usually specific comments on the individuals, thought up by the people who paid for the stone). I wonder who did pay for that stone?"
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